A Paradigm Shift for Assets, Environment & Disaster Management

Ergon, based in Queensland, Australia, explains how Roames is “delivering a paradigm shift in the way assets and their surrounding environment, works, and disasters are managed. The outcomes are improved safety, reliability, and customer service at lower costs, and the latent benefits are yet to be realised.”

Ergon Energy provides electricity to 1.5 million people, with 725,000 customer connections across more than one million square kilometres. We cover 97% of Queensland, from densely populated coastal centres to remote communities – two thirds of our customers are supplied through our rural network.

We have a regulated asset base worth over AUD $10 billion – 371 major substations, over 160,000 kilometres (97,000 miles) of power lines (380,000 kilometres of individual conductors) supported by more than a million power poles.

We have major responsibilities in distribution and retail for over 600 towns and cities. Our network is surrounded by over 100 million trees – now modelled individually and assessed for network risk.

Increasing stakeholder/ customer expectations of affordability, reliability and quality of supply meant that a cost-effective solution to asset monitoring was needed.

With Roames, we understand maintenance regimes and other priorities better than ever before. Efficiencies are significant, which ultimately benefits our customers, since network costs account for around 50% of electricity bills.

Accurate modelling and precise location have contributed to annual savings of AUD $40 million on vegetation management costs.